You miss Dick Armey, don’t you? Armey was the House Republican leader, chief author of the 1994 Contract on America and owner of the vilest tongue in Washington: “Barney Fag,” he called Rep. Barney Frank. About Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinsky in 1999, Armey said he would never have had a chance to resign because while he was lying in his own blood he would hear his wife muttering “How do I reload this damned thing?”

Armey is a Washington consultant and runs a conservative outfit called FreedomWorks. As of old, he is still warring with religious conservatives and stands at the fault line between social and economic conservatives. People for the American Way’s Right Wing Watch reports on the latest Armey imbroglio with the religious right, this involving the Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins, who wants President John McCain to appoint a “family czar,” and by reference Mike Huckabee. The old South Texas congressman has the mistaken notion that Perkins backed Huckabee for president, but he nevertheless has some insight into the former governor:

Says Armey: “[Perkins threw] his support behind Mike Huckabee, a candidate whose conservative credentials were anything but solid. By supporting a politician who governed in large part by taxing, regulating, and moralizing, he made his own declarations of conservatism subject to doubt.”